I watched the Ghana game too, Ted. It was demoralizing: how the Uruguayans had the nerve to celebrate is beyond me.
For those who missed it, Ghana would have won with the last touch of extra time but for a deliberate handball on the goal line. In an equivalent situation, a rugby referee would have awarded a penalty try and the match would have been over; all this referee could do was send off the Uruguayan offender (although not the second player who also flapped his hands at the ball) and award a penalty kick to Ghana. The kick was missed and Ghana lost the resulting shoot-out, but it should never have got that far.
In short, there's something seriously wrong with a game in which committing a red-card offence becomes the right thing for a player to do for his team. I can live with the occasional human refereeing error like Lampard's goal or Henry's handball - those won't be repeated in the same form; but in the same situation as last night, an equally unscrupulous player could and would do exactly the same.
I feel a tiny bit Scottish today: it's Anyone But Uruguay for me.
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